Explosive introduction to photographic career

"I don't think I was affected by the death that I had seen as much as some of the soldiers had been because I wanted to see that, I wanted to witness it," Benjamin Lowy told 666 ABC Canberra's Adam Shirley.

"I knew what I was getting into - trying to be a war photographer - and I think that goal of wanting to witness these things sort of worked as a buffer towards feeling it."

The New York-based photographer is in Sydney this week as a guest of Head On Photo Festival, a celebration of all things photographic.

Benjamin has won numerous accolades for his war photography and told Adam Shirley he had always dreamed of covering wars from behind a camera lens.

His big break came when he was just 23 and broke.

"I walked into the office at just the right moment looking for this office job when they said we need a photographer who can go to Iraq right away and that's basically how it happened," he said.

"I think it was a pretty explosive introduction."

'Heartless' and embarrassed

Benjamin said he had travelled the world as a war photographer - from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya - and he had experienced much in that time.

"There are certain situations that stick out in my mind that I will always remember because of what was happening around me... there were moments that happened where there was a camaraderie with myself and other journalists or with the people I was photographing."

One conversation Benjamin had with a soldier, after spending three months with a platoon in Iraq, really grounded him.

"It wasn't that exciting - there wasn't much happening while I was there," he recalled.

One day a soldier told Benjamin a gunfight was expected to break out.

"I was almost ecstatic for a second," he said.

"I put my hand up to give him a high five... and he was like, 'No, I don't really want to be in a gunfight,' and I was really embarrassed and really struck, like I just did something really heartless."

Benjamin was 25 at the time.

"Even remembering that situation embarrasses me... because it was something unempathetic, that I didn't feel, that I was just concerned with making the image," he said.

"Sometimes we forget that it's not just about us and it's not just about what we're photographing, it's also about the people that are experiencing it."

Cynical and realistic

In 2011, two of Benjamin's colleagues died while they were covering the conflict in Libya, a week after he had left the region to care for his pregnant wife.

This was a blatant reminder of how dangerous the job of a war photographer is.

Benjamin said he had "regretfully" decided not to cover the conflict in Syria as it was too risky and he had a young family to care for.

"I think the idealism that led me into photojournalism has waned quite a bit and I've now become a reluctant cynic and realist," he said.

"I think the reason that I am going to keep doing this job is to document history so that my children and my grandchildren know what came before them."